As Ye Zhengyi worked, I heard the murmur of a river, the sound of blood flowing, a woman crying, and a man wailing.
Those sounds came from a distant void, flickering in and out around me.
The skinny man shifted uneasily, as if he wasn't quite comfortable with the situation.
I, on the other hand, remained calm and watched Ye Zhengyi's painting with rapt attention.
Shades of red, light and dark, filled the canvas.
Gradually, the sound of flowing water and a woman's singing drowned out everything else. Only those two sounds remained around us.
The river in the painting took shape. I saw female ghosts swimming among the ripples like a school of fish. The scene was so clear that even their faces, stripped of skin, stood out on the paper. The paper was like a movie screen, with distinct layers of depth.
The entire painting suddenly came to life. The female ghosts and the river were no longer confined to the paper; they began to swim. The focus of the scene shifted, too. At first, it centered on one stretch of river, where I could see groups of female ghosts swimming past. After a while, the viewpoint began to move, like footage captured by a camera. Following its gaze, it traveled to other parts of the river.
I wasn't very familiar with rivers in China or abroad. Ye Zhengyi had painted only the river, without any riverbanks or landmarks nearby.
I saw only that the scene was focused on the female ghosts.
They seemed never to tire. Their singing never stopped, and neither did their swimming.
Ye Zhengyi had already lifted his wrist and put away his fountain pen.
I jolted out of my reverie and turned to look at the skinny man, who was still in a